Where this virus transfer between monkeys (and/or apes like chimps) and humans occurred is fairly well established – the Guinea-Bissau region of Central Africa. Interestingly, scientists mostly agree that the virus transfer occurred more than once – there are multiple strains of AIDS out there, and they apparently come from different simian viruses. When these multiple transfers occurred is more uncertain – with major implications on the how. Millions of Africans were removed against their will from their home continent as slaves during the 19th century, and not one of them took HIV or AIDS with them. Thus, the infection of humans with SIV from exposure to monkeys and/or apes obviously occurred later than the 1860s.
Sci-Fi Today has previously run a story about the so-called polio-vaccine theory of AIDS origin. This theory, championed by Edward Hooper in his monumental work The River, states that SIV was transfered into humans in the 1957-1960 time frame in Africa, by locally-made polio vaccines produced from contaminated monkey and ape tissue cultures. This theory is highly controversial; since no contaminated archival polio vaccine sample has ever been discovered, it remains unproven and perhaps unprovable.
Now a paper published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) elevates the AIDS epidemic almost to the level of Shakespearian tragedy, with the relevant byline being “Methinks he doth protest too much.” The paper, “Tracing the origin and history of the HIV-2 epidemic,” has as its lead author Philippe Lemey, but before submission it was edited by an aged Hilary Koprowski – the very doctor in charge of the 1957-1960 African polio vaccination effort. If Edward Hooper is correct, Dr. Koprowski is the greatest (unintentional) mass murderer in human history and used medical science as his (accidental) weapon. Naturally, Dr. Koprowski is not anxious to take on this mantle; over the years he has exhibited an interest in AIDS that is perhaps more preemptive defense than objective science. This latest PNAS paper on the subject, perhaps Koprowski’s last since he is in his late eighties, uses various molecular biology techniques to date the transfer of SIV into humans as being 1940 for HIV-2 Strain A and 1945 for HIV-2 Strain B. This would be well before Dr. Koprowski set foot in Africa for the first time and so would exonerate him from being the “Father of AIDS.” The PNAS paper implicitly relegates SIV transfer to several separate acts, all of which must never have occurred before the 1860s, of humans eating, suffering blood-transfering scratches, or perversely mating with simians, the three leading theories after contaminated polio vaccines for the rise of AIDS.
Oh, that it were so simple. Quantifying the mutation rates of viruses – the so-called “evolutionary clock” – is notoriously uncertain. The PNAS paper authors acknowledge this with the all-important “error bars” surrounding their 1940 and 1945 estimates: plus-or-minus 16 years for the 1940 conclusion and 14 years for the 1945 date. Hence, by the authors’ own admission, the 1940 and 1945 dates could just as easily be 1956 and 1959, using their own data and not even counting possible inaccuracies in their technique. This, of course, is right in the ballpark of Dr. Koprowski’s 1957-1960 polio vaccine efforts. In essence, the PNAS paper tells us the one thing we already knew – that we may never know the truth about the origin of AIDS.
No word of Edward Hooper’s take on this PNAS paper, but you can bet I’ll be watching for it, and I’ll pass it on here when I see it. Sci-fi literature frequently deals with science causing the death of millions of people. This is the one case in history where such an apocalyptic scenerio may actually have happened and, as such, merits consideration by all of us.